auto text, why won't it work or only works sporadically ...

i originally started this thread and there is no resolution ... i have tried every single thing suggested in this thread (plus excessive googling and i even paid the geek squad three hour minimum for them to say they do not know) and auto text does not work ... word 2010 was a giant waste of money as there is no support for the product other than people who seem to want to get nasty on here !!! i got rid of word 2010 and re-installed word 2000 !!! not having auto text added almost a full workday of work which really made me angry ... i personally find it offensive, having to use software over ten years old cuz the brand new one DOES NOT WORK and microsoft OFFERS ZERO SUPPORT !!! 

I still use Word 2003 for some purposes, but this isn't one of them. I know my AutoText entries names well enough to be able to type them and press the F3 key to pull them into the document.

Sorry, but I really did not know what you thought it meant for AutoText to be working.

You didn't break any rules. you are just less likely to get helpful responses posting at the end of an older thread, even one that hasn't been resolved, than you are if you post a new one.

I would recommend that you carefully read Stefan Blom and Graham Mayor's posts. If anyone in the user community has an answer it would be one of those two.

Basic thoughts seem to be that AutoText has been combined with the other building blocks and AutoCorrect which may be causing confusion in the characters needed to cause a tooltip (pop up) prompt.. If you somehow get rid of the rest of the building blocks you might be able to lessen the problem.

I asked about the F3 key because that will bring up AutoText in my experience, if you have the needed prompt characters.

It may even be distinguishing between AutoText and other kinds of building blocks so that if there are ambiguous entry names, it goes for the AutoText. This paragraph is speculation, not the result of knowledge or experimentation. I know that it does bring up AutoText entries stored in global templates that will never generate a tooltip.

i originally started this thread and there is no resolution ... i have tried every single thing suggested in this thread (plus excessive googling and i even paid the geek squad three hour minimum for them to say they do not know) and auto text does not work ... word 2010 was a giant waste of money as there is no support for the product other than people who seem to want to get nasty on here !!! i got rid of word 2010 and re-installed word 2000 !!! not having auto text added almost a full workday of work which really made me angry ... i personally find it offensive, having to use software over ten years old cuz the brand new one DOES NOT WORK and microsoft OFFERS ZERO SUPPORT !!!

What do I mean by "work"?? I mean exactly that. Sometimes when I type the first four letters of an Autotext entry, a little grey box pops up with the rest of the entry and I can either hit enter or tab and it will insert the text. But sometimes when I type the first four letters, nothing happens. It is completely intermittent. I can be working on the same page on the same document and within the same minute in time it can work and then it can not work. To reiterate, by "work" I mean the suggestion appears so that the entry can be inserted.

The problem is the INTERMITTENCE. If I have things set up correctly in the right template, which I'm sure I have, the autotext entries should be suggested every time, not just most of the time. It makes no sense to me why it works sometimes and why it doesn't work other times - as I said, same document, same time, sometimes even same sentence, it will work (and by that I mean suggest the autotext entry) and then suddenly it won't.

I use Windows 7 and Word 2010 (duh).

I'm sorry I broke your rules for posting. I guess I'll go somewhere else for help!

What do you mean by "work."

Does it work when you use the F3 key?

Where are your AutoText entries stored?

Choices are:

• normal.dotm
• the attached template
• a global template

AutoText does work in Word 2010. It isn't the same as it was in Word 2003 or Word 2007. For the pop-up to work the AutoText must be in normal.dotm or the attached template, not a general global template.

Note, you have posted at the tail end of a thread that is more than six months old, responding to a post that is three months old. You haven't given any information about your system or what you have done to let anyone try to help you. If you want to just complain you can do that. If you want help, please either start a new thread or provide information about which version of Word and Windows you are using and what Autotext isn't doing that you expect it to do.